“Disclosure Day” opened largely as expected, collecting $92.9 million worldwide over its first weekend. That was good enough to give the 79-year-old Spielberg, who conceived the film’s story, his best opening weekend for an original movie, not accounting to inflation.
“It played very, very evenly across all of the U.S. and Canada,” said Jim Orr, distribution chief for Universal. “It did not come across as a coastal big-market movie. It resonated with everybody.”
After Gen Z propelled moviegoing for the last several weeks, a slightly older audience drove interest in “Disclosure Day.” Some 41% of moviegoers were aged 45 and up.
“What’s encouraging is that we had this big an opening with that audience demographic and with the fact that it’s an original film,” said Orr. “So if we’re opening this well, and we think we’re going to have great word-of-mouth, and we have an older audience that doesn’t necessarily rush out on opening weekend, all of that points to a great run through the summer.”
“It’s off to a solid start,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends for Rentrak. “Let’s see how it plays in the coming weeks. If it holds like some of these other films have, like ‘Project Hail Mary,’ ‘Michael,’ ‘Obsession,’ it will be in good shape. Staying power has been the bread and butter of this year and this summer.”
Meanwhile, the “Obsession” sensation continues. Though it originally opened with $17.2 million, the Focus Features release has exceeded that for four consecutive weekends. It did so again this weekend, collecting $19 million in ticket sales to bring its North American haul to $188.3 million and its worldwide total to $286.5 million.
Having cost less than $1 million to make, “Obsession” ranks among the most profitable releases in recent memory. Focus acquired it for $15 million.
With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak:
1. “Disclosure Day,” $44 million.
2. “Obsession,” $19 million.
3. “Scary Movie,” $14.5 million.
4. “Backrooms,” $11.3 million.
5. “Masters of the Universe,” $8.7 million.
6. “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,” $4.7 million.
7. “Michael,” $4.1 million.
8. “The Furious,” $2.8 million.
9. “Stop! That! Train!” $2 million.
10. “The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act,” $1.8 million.
